West Virginia Stops

We did a short stop at a radio observatory in West Virginia.  It wasn’t as big as the VLA in New Mexico but more like the observatory in Arizona with all types of radio dishes in various locations in the area.  We didn’t take the time for the tour, but went to the visitor center and played with displays like this one.  You can move the model dish but not the real one!

I’m sure kids would like the displays, but we enjoyed playing too.  This is us in the infrared spectrum.  I’m holding a camera in front of me, in case you’re wondering.

Lost World Caverns was interesting. Here’s a bear fossil from the museum.

It’s one of the few caverns that allow you to wander a path unescorted. Here’s some Hex Blocks.  They are formed when a bed dries up.  You can see what the top surface of the mud would have looked like.  The pieces tend to separate into hexagonal blocks.

The cavern has a large problem with mold due to the lighting.  They said that every winter they close and spray down the formations with water and hydrogen peroxide.  It’s better than bleach since it doesn’t hurt any insects or animals.  But by fall, the mold has all come back. Personally, I think it’s time to try buying some energy efficient LED lights along with motion sensors.

In 1971, a man from Parkersburg West Virginia sat on top of this column called War Club for 15 days 23 hours and 15 minutes setting a Guinness World Record.  I’m not sure if the record still stands but you have to wonder why people do these things!

Here’s Seneca Rocks.  It’s a rock formation that’s big for the East.  When they built a visitors center, they found traces of Native Americans who had lived here for thousands of years.  John’s pointing at a guy that’s standing at the top.  Lots of climbers travel to here due to the difficulty of the climb.  The only way you can really see the guy is with binoculars, so don’t try to find him!

Fossils

 

The Gray Fossil Site is an active fossil site.  The state found this site in preparing to build a highway.  Instead they moved the highway a bit and started up a paleontology degree at the local university.  They’ve been digging up all sorts of animals from an ancient water hole and expect to continue digging for years.  Did you know rhinoceros lived in Tennessee years ago? You can see the dig site from an observation point, watch people in the labs cleaning bones, and see displays in the museum.  The yellow bags contain the dirt from around the bones.  They have to sift everything to find small bones or plant pieces.

 

If you’re a “Game of Thrones” fan, here are some Dire Wolf teeth.  Winter is coming!

Morning walk at a park in Virginia

 

 

 

Knoxville

 

Today we had an afternoon in the Knoxville area.  Besides being stuck in construction traffic, we enjoyed two museums.  The first was the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge.  There is a LOT of things to see in this museum related to work done to help make the nuclear bombs in World War II and displays on energy in general.  For instance, this is a model of Little Boy that exploded over Hiroshima.  During the war, not only did scientists need to learn how to separate uranium, but the project had to build a secret city of 75,000 people quickly.  One method was to build these small houses.  Given that our RV is half the size of this house, we’re jealous!

The best part of the museum is the toys…oops; I mean scientific equipment that you can operate.  There is a Jacob’s ladder, Tesla ball, and things like this mechanical arm.

 

The Frank H. McClung Museum is a bit bizarre.  While most of the museum has fossils and Native American artifacts from the Tennessee area, there is a great section on Egypt.  Some of the items were replicas, but a surprising amount were actual Egyptian pieces.

 

Finally, the Sunsphere was built for the Knoxville World’s Fair in 1982.  We considered going to the top, but couldn’t find a parking space plus we were exhausted after a long afternoon.

Rainy days and nights

I was told by someone at an airport somewhere that the best place to visit in Tennessee was the Big South Fork National Park.  Well, that might be true, but not in the rain.  We got to the park in the afternoon.  That night it started to rain…hard…all night.  The next day it stopped for a time so I said we needed to hike.  As soon as we got to the end of the path (2 miles out) it started to rain and continued to rain most of the way back. 

 

After all that hiking, Angel Falls isn’t much of a falls.  It’s supposed to be “one of the river’s most famous and feared rapids”. 

Along the path we saw evidence of some beavers cutting down wood but we didn’t see the dam they were building.

 
It was just nice to get back into the dry RV (until John had to drive through a downpour).

Burgess Falls

We dropped off our RV for repairs and then took off for a local park called Burgess Falls.  I’m almost glad we had those repairs since we wouldn’t have stopped otherwise (given the price of a compressor, I’m not that glad.)

         
There were three main falls along with the dam to see.  The biggest is pretty dang big.  It’s not as big as Niagara Falls, but it’s neat in that you can get really close and be in the spray of it plus it’s all free.  Getting up close was a bit difficult since it involved climbing down a rough path while the mist made the stones slippery. But fun!

 There were spots along the river where you could see ruins.  There used to be a grist mill and an early (1920’s) electric power station all powered by the water.

 

 When we got back our RV was fixed.  Yeah!  Plus the car dealership was having some kind of special event and had a free buffet lunch.  Nice!

 

Going with the Flow

Sometimes the best laid plans just have to change.  I try to have an organized plan but leave some “float”, though I didn't expect my ‘float’ would start this early.  I research stops for places to visit and look at reviews of the parks in the area (at rvparkreviews.com).  I try to find the best park but have a back-up if the first was filled or has other problems.  So far, out of 6 nights we've stayed at 1 of my "selected" sites.

As I mentioned earlier, the air conditioner failed in the truck portion of the RV.  While it’s a bit cooler now, there is no way John can drive an RV pulling a car for hours without AC.  So, we found a Ford dealership along the way.  It turns out it’s the compressor (very expensive) and means we need to stay overnight for the part to arrive.  So, tonight we found a place to camp nearby Cookeville Tennessee.  As John commented, Tennessee seems to be filled with "villes".  We stopped at Crossville, went past Nashville, staying at Granville, visiting Cookeville, and heading toward Knoxville.  And that's beside all the -villes we see along the way.

 

We visited a small train museum in town while we were waiting.  It was pretty cool!  The downtown is well preserved.  The local ice cream parlor had old pictures of the town to view.  The train museum allows you to climb into the cars.  Inside the museum was different train tools, uniforms, lights, and a toy train set-up of the town.

Oh, and I liked the praying mantis!

Bits and Pieces

We’re in Tennessee where kudzu has taken over many areas.  It’s bad, yet it is very cool to see since the plants give it a soft and magical look.

This week I attended meetings for work.  So John was stuck without a car.  The RV park had a fishing pond and a driving range, so it wasn’t all bad.  I stopped at a few interesting places to visit around my drive to work.  This included a cemetery (of course!).  This one had quite a few leaning gravestones.

 

I also visited some Indian mounds in this area.  One of the mounds is the 2nd highest in the U.S.  At 72 feet it didn't sound that high.  But that's equivalent to almost 7 stories and I was out of breath trying to run up the stairs.

There were more artifacts in the museum than many of the places we’ve visited.  I love these small bone fish hooks. They look difficult to make!  I also thought it was interesting that flint from Newark Ohio was found at the site since I visited there earlier (http://tandtrv.blogspot.com/2012/10/fall-in-ohio.html).